


Pristine Wildnerness

by mutationalfalsetto



Category: True Detective
Genre: Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Southern Reach AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-06
Updated: 2015-03-06
Packaged: 2018-03-16 14:45:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3492275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mutationalfalsetto/pseuds/mutationalfalsetto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of vignettes depicting the final attempts to map Area X.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pristine Wildnerness

**Author's Note:**

> This is really my first foray into True Detective fanfiction, and my first attempt to write anything that isn't a research paper in ages. Any suggestions and comments are appreciated.

Rust doesn’t come back after the expedition, but Crash does.

Crash, who leaves for days at a time and returns smelling like sweat and something primal. Crash, who sometimes gets a far-off look in his eye that can’t be attributed to whatever drugs he’s put in his system. Crash, who sometimes turns toward the horizon, seeking out a lone structure on a skyline far away.

 Marty doesn’t have the heart to put a bullet in his head.

 

\---------

 

It doesn’t take long for him to strike up a conversation with the Archaeologist. The two men amble along at the back of the group as they trek through the wilderness, talking about the world they left behind.

 When the group stops at Base Camp, he notices for the first time that he’s being watched. The Biologist, silent, sits on a log outside Central’s sad excuse for a tent, pen poised above the journals that were issued to all of them. _“To keep a record of everyone’s thoughts during the expedition,”_ the Psychologist told them. “ _For future expeditions_.”

Funny. He doesn’t remember seeing any journals during his training.

\---------

 

The next time he catches the Biologist staring at him, they’re headed toward the topographical anomaly. “ _For samples,_ ” the Biologist drawls, lighting one of the few cigarettes that Central has so graciously provided.

He motions to the camera hanging across the other man’s body, receives only a raised eyebrow in return.

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer.”

The Biologist looks at the woods surrounding them before glancing back in the direction of the ruined village. “Don’t think anything lasts very long here.”

When they get to the topographical anomaly, The Biologist is the first to descend. He calls it a tower.

 

\---------

 

Names aren’t allowed beyond the border. It’s the first thing Central tells you, and your name is the first thing they take when you begin your training. “ _For safety_ ,” the Psychologist told him during their first session, “ _we can’t give Area X anything to use against us_.”

The Surveyor looks at the body at the base of the lighthouse. Limbs splayed awkwardly, face unrecognizable. The only indicator that it _is_ the Psychologist is the long, dark hair now matted with blood.

Area X didn’t seem to care if she had a name or not.

That night he returns to Base Camp, finds the place ransacked and the Archaeologist dead.

The Biologist is nowhere to be found.

 

\---------

 

He finds the Biologist at the mouth of the topographical anomaly—the _tower_ , the _tunnel_ , the thing that he can see is breathing.

Slow, steady breaths.

If the Biologist hears him approaching, he doesn’t show it. Instead he leans forward, head nearly inside the gaping maw. He imagines the mandible, buried miles beneath them, creaking up until the jaws close on the other man’s head. Imagines the whole of Area X collapsing around them at that moment.

A deer wanders across his path.

“Back at Base Camp,” he begins before realizing that he doesn’t know where to start, doesn’t know how to begin addressing the things that the other man has done.

“He was already dead.” The Biologist’s voice drifts back to him as he takes a step into the entrance of the tower. Everything in the positioning of his body advertising that he intends to descend whether he comes back up or not. “

He doesn’t know what compels him to do it. “I uh… never introduced myself.” He’s still speaking to the Biologist’s back. The Biologist, who now stands with both feet planted inside the _towertunneltopographicalanomaly_. The Biologist who might not hear him, but in the end he’s not sure if it matters. “Marty.”

A pause.

“Rust.”

The Biologist descends.

 

\---------

 

Maybe it’s because everyone else is dead, or maybe it’s something else, but when the Biologi— _Rust_ returns from the depths of the topographical anomaly, Marty is overjoyed.

Not, of course, so overjoyed that he can’t tell that something’s changed.

 

\---------

 

The first time he catches Rust in the act, they’ve just uncovered the mountain of journals and he’s still trying to process exactly what it means.

“What the _fuck_ ’re you doing?”

Rust gives him a look that says _you fucking know what I’m doing_ as blood winds it way down his arm. Drips off his fingers and onto the pages below. “Keeps it occupied for a while,” he says, like it explains anything that just happened.

Marty feels like something is moving out of the periphery of his vision, rubs his eyes, and when he moves his hands away all he sees is light.

 

\---------

 

Sometimes Rust disappears for hours, leaves his pack with his vials, his tools, his camera, and Marty. When he comes back, his eyes are fever bright and he talks for hours about the wonder of the ecosystem they inhabit. Refers to it as a ‘utopia’, and if there’s a note of panic in his voice Marty doesn’t bring it up.

At night, he hears a mournful howl across the marsh and wonders if they’ll make it out alive.

Two days later, they head for the border.

 

\---------

 

The first—and last—time they kiss is when they’re standing at the edge. The only indication that they’ve reached their destination is the slight shimmer to the air in front of them.

The brightness has not receded from Rust’s eyes. Instead it bursts from him, a fiery orange glow.

“I can’t leave, Marty.” His hands are shaking, but his voice is steady. Marty wonders if he’s imagining the brightness winding its way around his words and settling deep into his lungs.

“Bullshit.” He spits the word out like it’s something filthy. “I didn’t bring you here just to play martyr.”

The light is pulsing, _breathing_ deep and slow and too much like the topographical anomaly for his liking.

Rust’s attention has turned to a heron, standing among the reeds off to their left. “I can’t leave it,” he repeats and something in his voice reminds Marty of the creature howling across the marsh. “It’s not going to _let me leave it_.”

The air shifts then, and Marty glances up in time to see something moving slowly through the air, splitting the sky in two. The howling echoes through the otherwise silent landscape.

Without thinking, Marty grabs Rust’s arm.

When he kisses him, he tastes light and fire and earth.

 

\---------

 

Central comes for them several weeks later. Haul them off to a facility for interrogation and when they ask Marty to describe Area X all he can think to say is “it’s perfect.” They ask him about the Archaeologist, the Psychologist, and the lighthouse and he doesn’t know. They ask him about Crash, and he has nothing to say.

The entire facility smells like earth and rotting honey. There’s a dampness to the air that makes him feel like the entire building is breathing.

When they finally ask him about the topographical anomaly the honey smell becomes unbearable. He spends the next day ridding his body of the terrible cafeteria food, panic blooming in his chest.

They do not interview him again. They never get a chance to.

 

\---------

 

When Rust comes back, he is welcomed with a shower of bullets.

When Rust comes back, he brings the end of the world.


End file.
